rk than that one. So I forgive you. But it's all
thanks to you people."

"We couldn't have done anything if you hadn't been determined to get
on," Norah answered. "As soon as you made up your mind to that--well,
you got on."

"I don't know how you stood me so long," he muttered. Then they
caught up to the riders ahead, and were received by Geoffrey with a
joyful shout.

"You were nearly late, Norah," said Mr. Linton.

"I dragged her from the kitchen, sir," Hardress said. "She and Miss
de Lisle were poring over food--if we get no dinner to-night it will
be our fault."

"If _you_ had the responsibility of feeding fourteen hungry people you
wouldn't make a joke of it," said Norah. "It's very solemn,
especially when the fishmonger fails you hopelessly."

"There's always tinned salmon," suggested her father.

"Tinned salmon, indeed!" Norah's voice was scornful. "We haven't
come yet to giving the Tired People dinner out of a tin. However,
it's all right: Miss de Lisle will work some sort of a miracle. I'm
not going to think of housekeeping for a whole day!"

The meet was four miles away, near a marshy hollow thickly covered
with osiers and willows. A wood fringed the marsh, and covered a hill
which rose from a little stream beyond it. Here and there was a
glimpse of the yellow flame of gorse. There were rolling fields all
round, many of them ploughed: it had not yet been made compulsory for
every landowner to till a portion of his holding, but English farmers
were beginning to awake to the fact that while the German submarine
flourished it would be both prudent and profitable to grow as much
food as possible, and the plough had been busy. The gate into the
field overlooking the marsh stood open; a few riders were converging
towards it from different points. The old days of crowded meets and
big fields of riders were gone. Only a few plucky people struggled to
keep the hounds going, and to find work for the hunters that had
escaped the first requisition of horses for France.

The hounds came into view as Mr. Linton's party arrived. The "Master"
came first, on a big, workmanlike grey; a tall woman, with a
weatherbeaten face surmounted by a bowler hat. The hounds trotted
meekly after her, one or another pausing now and then to drink at a
wayside puddle before being rebuked for bad manners by a watchful
whip. Mrs. Ainslie liked the Lintons; she greeted them pleasantly.

"Nice morning," she said. "